Anyone had a loft conversion in London area?

[lyrabelacqua]

If so who did it? (specialist loft company, building contractor) and roughly how much did it cost?
We're thinking of having ours done so the boys have have their own rooms (little one keeps waking big one up in the morning and he's permanently knackered).
we've got a Victorian two-bed semi and think we can shoe-horn two medium-sized bedrooms and a loo/shower room in there.
If you had yours done under permitted development, what was the procedure? Did you have to run it by the planners or just go straight to building regs?
I've asked all these questions of my local council but they just referred me to a lot of useless internet links.
Someone help!

We live in East London. Trimloft have done pretty much every loft in our area and come in cheaper than other firms. As far as I'm aware, they just operate around here and there is a long waiting list. We also got a quote from Charles Jeffery, who another poster mentioned. Their quote was £7k more expensive - when I saw the quality of the loft they showed me it wasn't clear to me why. But then we are not builders and it's the internal stuff not just the finishings which maybe make the difference?

Reason we haven't gone for it yet is it's not a cert we will get planning permission (already done ext off kitchen).

A1 Lofts did ours and I can't recommend them highly enough. Totally fab, and you don't have to worry about anything like buildings regs etc - their surveyor handles absolutely everything for you.

Ina terraced house you have 50 cubic metres permitted development,subject to the proposal NOT including front roof extensions (or side, if you are a corner house) and not resulting in the roof line being raised.
From that 50 cu m you deduct the volume of any previous extensions built since 1st July 1948. What you are left with is your pd allowance.
Dormers tend to be small in terms of the volume projecting out of the riginal roof line.
If the proposal is permitted development, you only need to get building regs approval.

I think a specialist firm is the way to go. No hassle at all, and all done and dusted in five weeks. Lovely timber sash windows too! (timber on inside, white metal on the outside so you don't have to paint them, actually)

pooka thanks that's even clearer although because it's 50 cubic volume instead of 70!
current owner says that she already had planning permission but they've expired... wonder if true...

Might be true. PP lasts for 5 years. You could always reapply - success depends upon whether major policy shift in the interim, but generally rear dormers pretty much green-lighted when not cons. area or listed building.

Did anyone have an experience with loft masters?

we used A1 lofts (we're in sw18)- would defo recommend them.
Whether you need planning permission or not depends on how much you want to increase the floor space relative to what you have already. When you get quotes from companies you can find out what the restrictions are (if you have to go for planning permission the rules vary by borough - wansdworth more relaxed than lambeth for example)

Has anyone had a loft extension done recently in SW15 ? Especially one involving a v shaped London roof.

I used Abbey Lofts Ltd. for a loft conversion this year and feel it would be hard to recommend them to anyone with any confidence and satisfaction. They do a very slick sales job explaining that they use their own in-house teams to do the work but it is obvious they sub-contract the work out. I wasn't happy at all with the actual work which was undertaken and would say the project was badly managed by all at Abbey Lofts Ltd. My wife and I were left completely frustrated many times. It seems once Abbey Ltd. obtained the initial two payments they were very much hands-off. Over the course of the project, I had to deal with so many different people at Abbey and there was no continuity. I have heard similar stories from other previous clients of theirs.